I’m interrupting my normal food adventure timeline for an emergency food adventure. Back on October 15, the Iowa Pork Producers Association announced this year’s winner for Iowa’s best breaded pork tenderloin. The great news is that the winner is less than 1 hour away from my front door! Earlier this… Read More »Tenderloining: Carroll Field Work
This Sunday’s food adventure involves the one and only one barbecue competition this year. Part of that was because of the business of their schedules and part of it was because one of them got a job. Part of it might have been because the Pufferbilly Days barbecue contest didn’t… Read More »Tall & Meaty Goes to the Fair
Recently the Iowa Pork Producers Association released their 5 Finalists for Iowa’s Best Breaded Pork Tenderloin. Here are the Finalists: Unfortunately none of them are super close to me and thanks to the warmongering imbeciles running our country and Iowa, it will cost a pretty penny to even get to… Read More »ISF 2026 Food: Trip 3
My second trip to the Iowa State Fair was as support staff for the world famous competitive barbecue team Tall and Meaty. This year was a little bit different because they they didn’t earn their way to the big stage with a win at the Boone County Fair. There are… Read More »ISF 2026 Food: Trip 2
I made 3 trips to the Iowa State Fair this year. They were the same traditional trips I seem to make every year. 1 trip to see the O’Gorshes dance. 1 trip to assist a team with the barbecue contest. 1 trip to pick up my photo contest entries. My… Read More »ISF 2026 Food: Trip 1
We woke up in a hotel in Oklahoma City. It was one of those sweet spot hotels that had free breakfast. We knocked down some tasty vittles and then hit the open road for our final day on Route 66. Here are are the cell phone pictures from the final… Read More »The Mother Road: Day 6 Snaps
Day 5 began in a hotel in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The hotel was too fancy pants to serve a free breakfast so we just hit the road and saw some of my top Route 66 items right away. The Land of the Giants! Here are the cell phone pictures from Day… Read More »The Mother Road: Day 5 Snaps
Day 4 of the Route 66 Road Trip – Phase 1 we woke up in the bougie RV Park Beagle Bay. The previous day the temperature had eclipsed triple digits. It didn’t cool off much at night. With no air conditioning and no air movement I would swear that temperature… Read More »The Mother Road: Day 4 Snaps
Time to share the cell phone pictures from Day 3 of the Route 66 Road Trip – Phase 1. We started the morning at the Meramec Caverns Campground. It had rained all night. In the morning it was nice and cool. We had breakfast at the Meramec Caverns diner as… Read More »The Mother Road: Day 3 Snaps
By the time this publishes, I will have my entries for the Iowa State Fair Photography Salon in my possession. So I can reveal what pictures I entered this year. Here they are: Selected for Display Not selected for Display Selected for Display Not Selected for Display Next year I… Read More »The Mother Road: Day 2 Snaps
A couple of weeks back Andy and I hit the open road in an attempt to drive half of the Mother Road. Route 66. America’s highway! While I took a ton of pictures with the “real” camera, I’m not ready to show those. Not by a long shot Chet. But… Read More »The Mother Road: Day 1 Snaps
A few weeks back Jay, Jesse, Willy, and I headed up to Decorah for a foodie double header. Our first stop was to try the reigning Best Burger in the Cyclone State at Dixie’s Biergarten. We also went to Luna Valley Farm, but I will not be covering that trip… Read More »Burgertime: Decorah Field Work
Last Sunday I shared the breakfast meal Carla, Teresa, and I had on our road trip to Clinton to do some troll hunting. Today I’ll share where we went for lunch before turning around and coming back to Boone. We ate at a microbrewery that I saw on “Road Trip… Read More »Big Pizza Pie: Clinton Field Work
A few Saturdays back Carla, Teresa, and I loaded up in the RAV4 and went to Clinton to do some troll hunting. On the way we stopped for breakfast at the Sunrise Café in Le Grand, Iowa. We decided to stop there because it was on a list of “8… Read More »Breakfast Club: Le Grand Field Work
Can you believe that this is the 6,000th entry in the blog known as “An Artist’s Notebook”? Every 250 posts or so I like to take a moment to reflect on where this post has been and post a lot of meaningless stats. As always on these posts, I like… Read More »Post 6,000
A couple weeks back I saw that a food truck that I hadn’t eaten at was going to be setting up show in McHose Park. I decided to make that my supper plans and headed out there for a little din-din. The food truck was the Wobbly Pin based out… Read More »Burgertime: McHose Park Field Work
After church a few weeks ago I took Brandon out for lunch for assisting with getting Morris, my 4 foot concrete alligator in place in my front yard. We went to Daisy’s Dog House in Ames. Logan, Dahlia, Jonah, and Andy all came along as well. Here are some cell… Read More »Hot Dog! Ames Field Work
A couple Fridays back Jay and I ventured over to Jefferson for their Bell Tower Days for FNSC. Despite my affection for small town festivals and the close proximity of Jefferson to Boone I had never been to Bell Tower Days before. We went on Friday night, so we didn’t… Read More »Taco ‘Bout It: Jefferson Field Work
One of the bucket list restaurants on my list isn’t really a restaurant at all. It is an old gas station/cafe that used to sit along side the old Lincoln Highway. The Youngville Cafe. It went out of business in the 1960s, but is being preserved. To help maintain the… Read More »Tenderloining: Youngville Field Work
When I went on my annual Birthday Road Trip, Nader and I went up to the Orange City Tulip Festival. But while we were there, I cashed in on a chance to do some tenderloining. Orange City is the home of The Roadhouse. It is a restaurant of some reputation.… Read More »Tenderloining: Orange City Field Work
Back on May 15, Nader and I hit up 515 Day in Ames to check out the annual Food Truck Showdown. I have to admit that at this point it was kind of slim pickings to find a food truck that I haven’t tried in this area. At least that… Read More »Food Truckin’: 515 Day Field Work
